'Paperless arrests'

Police in Darwin have jailed nearly 1,000 Aboriginal people under new public order laws that allow detention without an arrest warrant. Following a black death in custody, the coroner said the laws should be repealed because they perpetuate and entrench Indigenous disadvantage. But the NT government is refusing to budge. So have 'paperless arrests' reduced crime? Wendy Carlisle investigates.

This article represents part of a larger Background Briefinginvestigation. Listen to the full report on Sunday at 8.05 am or use the podcast links above after broadcast.

It's not hard to find Indigenous people in Darwin who've been picked up and detained under paperless arrest laws. The laws were introduced by the CLP in a sweeping change to police powers last year, to 'give police control of the streets'.

They allow police to detain people without arrest or the oversight of the courts. But those mainly caught in the net are Indigenous people, detained for minor offences no court would send them to jail for.

Of those arrested, over 80 per cent are Indigenous, which means close to 1,000 Indigenous people have been held in the Darwin police lockup for minor street offences like drinking in parks and disorderly behaviour offences.

Now the Northern Territory coroner has called for paperless arrest laws to be repealed following the death of an Indigenous man in custody, saying the laws disproportionately affect Aboriginal people and more deaths will follow.

The government is refusing to budge. Chief minister Adam Giles says paperless arrests are driving down the crime rate.

'We've freed police up ... from being stuck behind a desk and now getting out on the beat and servicing Territorians on a regular basis,' he says.

'This is one of the reasons we're seeing crime at record low levels in the Northern Territory.'

However, according to NT crime statistics, assaults in Darwin have continued to rise under the CLP's more liberal alcohol policies. In the notorious Mitchell Street entertainment precinct, assaults are higher than when they were elected in 2012.

That hasn't deterred the former policeman turned Northern Territory attorney-general, John Elferink.

'If you look at the newspapers today in the Northern Territory, where 12 months ago we would regularly see an article about a serious assault in Mitchell Street, that is now almost disappeared,' he says.

'I am still waiting for the police to provide me with statistics in this space and I mean you have to have a certain proving time before you can look at the statistics, but certainly anecdotally the evidence is there.'

Pressed on whether evidence supports a connection between assault rates and paperless arrests, Elferink says he certainly believes it does.

'There are serious assaults that happen historically; they appear not to be happening now. We are allowed to make that assertion on the basis of that.'

Elferink says there's a sound rationale for placing minor offenders behind bars while they sober up—arguing it's the drunks who are violent later on.

'You've got to remember that this notional idea that it's just a man or a woman sitting in a park and having a drink and they should be unmolested is incorrect,' he says.

'What happens in the real world is that if someone is publicly drunk they are invariably the people we end up arresting from much more serious and indictable offences much later on.'

Supporting Information

Transcript

Wendy Carlisle: It's the wee small hours of Sunday morning in Darwin's notorious Mitchell Street. The alfresco bars like Ducks Nuts, Monsoons and Shenanigans are packed and in full swing.

Like the Todd River in Alice Springs, Darwin's Mitchell Street has a sorry record of booze and violence. It's a glimpse of the Territory's bigger grog problem; the alcohol related violence, hospital admissions, and a police force over-burdened with cleaning up the mess.

When the CLP won the 2012 election, they abolished the pervious government's liquor reform, such as the banned drinkers register, which electronically linked all takeaway liquor outlets, and a mandatory requirement to show a drivers licence to buy takeaway grog. The effect was instant; the assault rate immediately went up on Darwin's Mitchell Street.

The CLP tried a few strategies in Darwin; police stationed outside bottle shops to stop the vulnerable from buying grog, but there weren't enough police for that project so the idea lapsed. Then late last year the government gave police extraordinary new powers, known as paperless arrest. This allowed police to detain people for minor offences such as public drinking and disorderly behaviour.

The Chief Minister Adam Giles claimed instant success.

Adam Giles: And I will remember when Labor was saying that places like Mitchell Street were a mini Beirut just 12 months ago, and now we're seeing situations where the streets are being cleaned up, there is less violence, so there is less alcohol caused violence occurring, and this is because of a range of the measures that we put in place.

Wendy Carlisle: The crackdown has seen close to a thousand Indigenous people detained for offences for which no court would order a term of imprisonment. The government acknowledged the laws would result in a deprivation of liberty, but the trade-off was that serious crimes would be avoided in the future.

Attorney General, John Elferink:

John Elferink: …science, I get the concept of liberty. But in the practical world, in the real world of Mitchell Street when people are standing on street corners with their pants around their ankles, blaring out expletives or baring their buttocks to passing cars, or expectorating, fornicating, urinating, defecating and doing all those other things they do when they have a skinful of juba juice, we can now say to the police, 'Go out, lift them, pull them out of circulation'. You may be probably doing them a favour because whilst they are sitting in the cells they are not getting drunker still and committing, later on in the evening, indictable offences.

Wendy Carlisle: In May an Indigenous man died in police custody after being detained under the paperless arrest regime. At the resulting inquest, the coroner launched a stunning attack on the government; paperless arrests should be repealed, he said, and he warned of more deaths in custody as it was Indigenous people who were being court by the crackdown.

The government stood firm. Paperless arrests would remain.

John Elferink: Nothing says in the paperless arrest legislation that it targets Aboriginal people, unfortunately Aboriginal people are overrepresented and that's an effect of something else. The law must apply to all Territorians equally.

Tony: It's all politics. The CLP want em off the streets, there seems to be that attitude of getting them off the streets.

Ronnie: They arrest, they arrest us mob, police, police they arrest for nothing.

No one knows the streets of Darwin like the Larrakia Night Patrol. The night patrol is a community outreach project run by Darwin's traditional owners, the Larrakia. Each night they search the city streets looking for the intoxicated. And a steady stream of referrals flood in from Territory police radio.

Wendy Carlisle: I'm out on patrol with Tony and Ituma. We've picked up a job from the police and we're heading down to a block of housing commission flats in the Darwin suburb of Nightcliff.

Ituma: David, how old are you?

David: …1963. I probably am 51, 52…

Ituma: Yep. What's your name?

Johnny: Johnny.

Ituma: Johnny. You going to? Are you staying or are you going to Bagot? All right, no worries, we'll take them on to Bagot. Just going to open this door.

Wendy Carlisle: The pair have been working together for a number of years, and they know their beat well.

So what do you do, just cruise around now?

Tony: Yeah, just checking…sometimes we've driven around and there's someone asleep at the bus stop, intoxicated, and you just ask can we take them somewhere, preferably...some of them if they're so tired they're just happy to go and have a sleep at the spin dry (the sobering up shelter) . Others have just got a home to go to, and others just don't want to be troubled and there's not much we can do.

Wendy Carlisle: Why do they call it (the sobering up shelter) the spin dry?

Tony: I suppose because they go in, they are drying out, come out, and then they are back in again, sort of that cycle, that spin cycle. That's what I can assume that's what it means.

Wendy Carlisle: Where set for a long night. Ituma and Tony might do 20 pick-ups or more, and the aim is always the same; to keep the intoxicated, or the intox as they call them, out of harm's way.

Tony: To give a place of safety to the intoxicated, to have a safe result for the intox if we can, you know, whether it be the spin dryer, whether it be their home, doublecheck, just interact with the community, mainly Indigenous…

Ituma: Long grass mob.

Tony: Yeah, long grass, that's all we can do is just…

Wendy Carlisle: So is one of the main ideas to keep them out of the lock-up?

Tony: Yes, that's the main…to keep them out of the watchhouse.

Ituma: Yes, just find a better place than the watchhouse, because you end up with a fine, people don't have an income to pay that, it's just that ongoing domino effect of problems that come after. That's what I believe.

Tony: Yeah, and there's been people that have had periods, like a few months, because of unpaid fines, they've spent time in prison because of unpaid fines. And their crime is that they are an alcoholic.

Wendy Carlisle: Do you notice that more people are getting picked up by the police?

Tony: Yeah, there seems to be…it's all politics. The CLP want them off the streets, there seems to be that attitude of getting them off the streets. You know, it's all politics and it's all over my head. All we can do is just offer a place of safety and that, and yeah, keep em out of lockup if we can, you know.

Ituma: And if they are violent and for other people's safety of course the watchhouse is the best thing, if it's that violent type of people, but you hardly ever see that.

Wendy Carlisle: No one thinks the Night Patrol is the solution to alcohol misuse, it's harm reduction at best. And last November, the CLP announced it wanted police to take back control of the city streets, drinkers would be targeted, and the Attorney General called paperless arrests a form of 'catch and release', specifically designed to take offenders out of circulation.

Attorney general John Elferink:

John Elferink: What it will actually say to the police is if these clowns are playing up, arrest them, take them into custody, get them out of circulation.

Wendy Carlisle: The laws have been so vigorously applied in Darwin that police paddy wagons have been known to queue up outside Darwin's CBD police station. The Northern Territory Police Association says there simply aren't enough staff to handle that.

Paul McCue:

Paul McCue: Some of the feedback we have received at the Police Association is there have been times when police have been banked up a few vehicles deep waiting to get people into the cells, and that's an issue.

Adam Giles: And I will remember when Labor was saying that places like Mitchell Street were a mini Beirut just 12 months ago and now we're seeing situations where the streets are being cleaned up. There is less violence, so there is less alcohol caused violence occurring and this is because of a range of the measures that we put in place.

Wendy Carlisle: Background Briefing sought an interview with the chief minister, but he declined. We also sought evidence for his claim that alcohol related crime on Mitchell Street had gone down by a quarter, as police statistics do not support this statement.

But the Attorney General also stands firm; paperless arrests, he says, have reduced assaults.

Wendy Carlisle to John Elferink: When you bought the law in you said at the time, I think I can quote you, you said, 'I bet London to a brick that serious assaults later on in the evening will substantially drop.' Has that occurred?

John Elferink: Well, if you look at the newspapers today in the Northern Territory, where 12 months ago Mitchell Street would regularly see an article about a serious assault in Mitchell Street, that has now almost disappeared.

Wendy Carlisle: But what did the police statistics say?

John Elferink: Well, I'm still waiting for the police to provide me statistics in this space, and, I mean, you've got to have a certain proving time before you can look at the statistics. But certainly anecdotally the evidence is there.

Wendy Carlisle: My point is it hasn't stopped either you or the Chief Minister from claiming that serious assaults have gone down in the CBD, and you're now saying it's anecdotal.

John Elferink: Well, there are serious assaults that happened historically, they appear not to be happening now. We are allowed to make that assertion on the basis of that.

Wendy Carlisle: What I'm trying to pin down is the connection between assault rates and paperless arrests, and what I'm putting to you is that the evidence doesn't support that.

John Elferink: Well, what I'm saying is that certainly I believe that it does.

Wendy Carlisle: John Elferink.

According to police data, although alcohol related crime has dropped marginally in the last year, overall it's higher than when the CLP was first elected. As for the rest of Darwin and its satellite city Palmerston, alcohol related violence continues to escalate, and we'll post these figures on our website.

At the coronial inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Langdon in the Darwin watchhouse, Coroner Greg Cavanagh said there was no evidence that paperless arrests reduced other more serious crimes.

The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Association—NAJAA—has challenged the laws in the High Court, which is yet to release its decision.

Jonathon Hunyor is the principal solicitor with NAAJA.

Jonathon Hunyor: There is no evidence to support that. And these sorts of policies aren't being rigorously analysed. We haven't got baseline data, we haven't got a proper rigorous model to analyse this and actually say what are we going to count, how are we going to tell if this thing works? And that's a real problem, not only when we spend an awful amount of money on these sorts of policies but when they have these significant impacts on people's freedoms. Surely we should be asking do these things work, and if so how, and at what cost, at what cost in terms of dollars, at what cost socially, at what cost in terms of people's liberties? Then we can have a real debate about whether these things work or not. But until we do that we are really relying on anecdote and on rubbery figures.

Wendy Carlisle: The coroner heard evidence from senior police that 80% of those detained under paperless arrests are Indigenous, which means that close to one thousand Indigenous people have detained for a minimum of four hours for misdemeanours that no court would send someone to jail for.

It's not hard to find Indigenous people who've been arrested and detained.

Matty: I mean, we were only just having a drink in the park, it was 8 o'clock at night and there was policemen on patrol, there was about four of us. And there was a couple of blokes off the trawlers who had just finished work and we were just sitting there and I think we had a dozen Jim Beam and, yeah, the police picked us up and poured our cans out, actually not far from the police station really, it was in the park just down from the police from the Esplanade.

Wendy Carlisle: Matty was arrested in a so called designated area, a city park where drinking is banned. When police tipped out their Jim Beams, Matty and his mates were annoyed. They trooped up to the police station to complain.

Matty: We went up to the police station to complain that they had poured the cans out…

Wendy Carlisle: There was a dozen cans between four of you?

Matty: Yeah, and when we complained they actually came up behind us and said we are sending them in for a couple of hours for drinking in a public place, consuming alcohol in a public place.

Wendy Carlisle: But they haven't said that earlier, only when you went to complain?

Matty: Only when we went to complain. What happened then was we were held for about three hours and then we were allowed to go then. It was weird.

Wendy Carlisle: Matty wasn't too sure what crime they had committed to get locked up.

Matty: They said we were drinking in a public place and we were intoxicated.

Wendy Carlisle: Were you?

Matty: Yeah, to an extent but not to an extent where we were actually staggering and making loud noises, we were sitting there talking, having reasonable conversations about fishing and everything. We were supposed to be sitting up there drinking and carrying on like two-bob watches, which we weren't, we were actually…and two of the guys had only just come off the trawler about an hour and a half, two hours beforehand, they'd cleaned up and cleaned up the boat and everything and they'd come up and we'd met them all there, and that was it.

Wendy Carlisle: And so you were put in a cell, were you?

Matty: Yes, we were put in a cell, in the drunks tank, and we were there for about four hours. And then they opened up the door and said, 'Righto lads, ready to go?' Yeah, whatever. I mean, it was done and dusted, we couldn't do anything. So we didn't bother to argue about it, we just left, and the only thing we were really upset about was that we lost a dozen cans.

Wendy Carlisle: But in the afternoon of Thursday, May 21, much more was lost than a dozen cans of Jim Beam. A police operation was under way in Mitchell Sweet, Darwin.

NAAJA's Jonathon Hunyor:

Jonathon Hunyor: Well, police were involved in Operation Ascari which was an operation designed to I guess in colloquial terms crack down on public disorder type offending, drinking in public particularly was one thing they were looking at. And police were doing patrols around this area and they had identified Spillett Park here as what they were calling a hotspot for public drinking particularly. Quite often Aboriginal people will sit here in groups…

Wendy Carlisle: It's got nice trees.

Jonathon Hunyor: There's some shade. It backs onto a lane, so it's kind of one of the pathways that particularly long grassers or itinerant people will use getting one place to the other and they might stop here, and police have identified it as somewhere where people are often drinking.

Wendy Carlisle: Amongst that group of Indigenous people in Spillett Park was a Warlpiri man from Yuendumu in Central Australia.

Jonathon Hunyor: Kumanjayi Langdon was here with other people, including some members of his family, and police were across the road diagonally opposite from here at the Woolworths car park where they were arresting some other people for drinking offences and one of the police officers looked across and saw Kumanjayi drinking something from a green plastic soft drink bottle and he formed the view at that stage that he was drinking alcohol because of the context.

Wendy Carlisle: And what did the police do then?

Jonathon Hunyor: The police officer decided right then to arrest him, and they decided at that stage as well that they were going to take him back to the police station and hold him for four hours or longer under this paperless arrest regime.

Wendy Carlisle: Was he being unruly?

Jonathon Hunyor: No, so the evidence in the inquest was that he had done nothing to draw himself to the attention of police apart from doing something that looked like he was drinking alcohol. The police officer formed the view that he was intoxicated, and that was a fair enough view, he was in fact quite drunk.

Wendy Carlisle: Kumanjayi Langdon was detained in custody. The coroner found he was treated like a criminal, fingerprinted, and handcuffed. He later died on a concrete bench due to his poor health.

Jonathon Hunyor: But the coroner then went on to question whether or not it was a reasonable thing to then arrest him and take him into custody. Because even having decided he was drinking, it was then open to the police to think of a range of other things such as sending him home or taking him to a sobering up shelter or even just giving him a warning and leaving him alone because he was doing thing apart from drinking.

Wendy Carlisle: The coroner said Kumanjayi Langdon was entitled to die a free man.

But the Territory's first law officer, John Elferink, is unrepentant.

John Elferink: Because it is those people who then escalate into further offending down the track. Where do these people defecate, where do these people urinate? Where do these people…

Wendy Carlisle: Mr Langdon was doing none of those things. The coroner found that he was very quietly sitting in the park having a drink with friends, he wasn't drawing any attention to himself, except but for the fact that he was drinking a park.

John Elferink: But the laws of the Northern Territory say you can't do that, because of the enormous problems that drinking in our public places cause.

Wendy Carlisle: The Territory's coroner, Greg Cavanagh, said paperless arrest laws were irreconcilable with the recommendations of the royal commission into black deaths in custody, which urged police to use arrest and detention as a last resort. These laws, he said, had been introduced without any apparent thought to the likely increase in deaths in custody.

Wendy Carlisle to John Elferink: The Northern Territory coroner criticised these laws in his findings into the death of the man who passed away in the Darwin watchhouse. He said it's a retrograde law. You’ve said the laws were back to the future. I guess in some way you are both agreeing, aren't you? He saying it's back to the bad old days, and you're saying thing else, it's back to the good ol’ days.

John Elferink: Well, look, I have to show the greatest respect to the coroner, as the Attorney General I would never, ever seek to scandalise a court in the Northern Territory. But having read his decision, essentially what is woven into his decision is this notion that an Aboriginal person should be in some way exempt from the laws of the Northern Territory in a way that the non-Aboriginal person isn't…

Wendy Carlisle: He hasn't said that though.

John Elferink: It's implied in the decision and I've said that before. The other component is that he somehow seems to suggest that Aboriginal people are somehow excluded from the public bars and other institutions in our community. They are not. You can go into any public bar as any race in the Northern Territory and you can enjoy a drink locally, so long as you meet the dress standards and so long as you meet the expectations of the licensed premises. The coroner has an opinion which I just don't share.

Wendy Carlisle: It wasn't an opinion, with respect Minister, it was a finding of a judicial officer.

John Elferink: Yes, and I would say that that is an opinion.

Police radio: Zero 9, go ahead.

Carly: Yeah VKN, we have completed a conveyance of one female and one male to One Mile Dam community, is it possible we can get the job details for the job in Woods Street? Over.

Police radio: Roger. I don't have many details, we've got police off there at the moment with an unrelated offence. They state that they have got a drunk female that is causing them trouble, just trying to get involved, so they're just requesting you guys come and pick her up. They will be able to advise you of the female when you arrive. Over.

Carly: Yeah, Roger that VKN. Thank you.

Wendy Carlisle: It's another busy night on the Larrakia Night Patrol. Night patroller Carly is out with her buddy Pete, and they can see it's going to be a big night.

Carly: I think this is job number seven, man...

Wendy Carlisle: We've been called by police to come and assist an Indigenous woman not far from the CBD, and the police are there when we arrive.

Policeman: We've just got this young lady over here.

Pete: Oh yeah, I'll just drive up…

Wendy Carlisle: Carly's first job is to wake the woman up and get her into the back of the Larrakia Night Patrol van.

Carly: Hello, sweetie wake up, it's Night Patrol. Can we take you somewhere? Do you want to go to the spin dry for a rest? Come on then, do you want to wake up for me, we'll take you for a rest hey? It's Night Patrol. Come on sweetie, you're all right. Hop up, you're right. It's only Night Patrol, come on. Watch your legs. Do you want to go to spin dry for a rest? All right, are you ready, can we help you up? That's the way.

Wendy Carlisle: Last year the Territory government cut funding to the Larrakia Night Patrol. The NT Attorney General said it was just funding that encouraged to people to get on the turps. The office of prime minister and cabinet then stepped in with the funding shortfall.

So what brings you to this job? What is it about this job?

Pete: Well, it was a second job for me, so the money really.

Carly: Yeah, the same for me, I just needed a job. I managed to get this job on my own, so I was pretty happy with that. Because I'd been with a job network for three-odd years, and every job they kept trying to put me in, it just didn't fit my criteria, so I just didn't want to work, particular places like childcare and stuff like that.

Wendy Carlisle: This is certainly not childcare!

Carly: I can work with kids, don't get me wrong, I'm just not a kids person, to be completely honest, but if I had to work with kids I would.

Pete: But it's probably better you don't.

Carly: No, I'm not mean to kids…

Pete: Nah, I'm only joking.

Carly: It's one thing I'd never…but it's just I don't have the patience for it.

Pete: Carly is very good at what she does here.

Wendy Carlisle: What makes you good?

Carly: Ask him, he's saying it, I don't know, I just do the job I'm supposed to do.

Pete: A good attendance record, she's probably got the best attendance record here. The paperwork is the best. A bit of a stickler for the rules. And just being good at what she does, yes. I mean, everybody is good, but I think she's probably the top dog. You've got to have the gift of the gab.

Carly: Half of them would rather put up with us than put up with the police, you know, because the police these days, some of them don't have patience with them, where we do.

Wendy Carlisle: Two years ago the government announced the creation of temporary beat locations. TBLs meant police were now to be stationed outside takeaway liquor shops in Alice Springs, Katherine, Tennant Creek and in Darwin to stop alcohol getting into dry communities. But the temporary beat locations were dropped in Darwin because there just weren't enough police. The Territory Police Association has been on the warpath about the policy, saying police have been turned into quasi-security guards for the liquor outlets. Paul McCue:

Paul McCue: You know, at the moment one of the solutions government have come up with is to stand police in front of liquor outlets, for example. Whilst that might be effective to a certain degree, that is, number one, not sustainable, and number two not the whole and sole answer to that problem. So there are possibly other measures you can look out, such as restricting the alcohol in other ways. The previous government had a banned drinkers register. I'm not saying let's bring that back, but there might be other technology or other things they can do rather than have police tied up out the front of bottle shops every day.

Wendy Carlisle: In June, a federal parliamentary inquiry into alcohol misuse in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities recommended that the Territory reintroduce the banned drinkers register, which they found had significantly reduced alcohol related harm. They also called for a volumetric alcohol tax. These recommendations had been enthusiastically welcomed by the Peoples Alcohol Action Coalition from central Australia. And they say that while temporary beat locations have reduced harm in Tennant Creek, Alice and Katherine, in Darwin it's a very different story.

Dr John Boffa:

John Boffa: But of course that's only happening in Katherine, Tennant Creek and Alice Springs. In Darwin it hasn't been replaced with anything, and it hasn't been replaced with any other population supply reduction measure. So Darwin is significantly worse off now than it was when this new government was elected.

Wendy Carlisle: Yes, I don't know what the hospital data shows, but I do know that the assaults statistics that the police release do show that the rates of assault are going up in Darwin and Palmerston, unlike in Katherine, Tennant Creek and Alice Springs where they are going down. So I guess there could be some correlation there, do you think?

John Boffa: I think it's quite likely that there is a correlation there. But again, to study this properly we need to be able to access the data and we need to be held to access the data across the Northern Territory through a proper independent evaluation process. To depoliticise this we actually need to have a situation where through data linkage we have a dataset longitudinally that's independent to government, that can be looked at at any time to assess the impact of any policy measures that are taken on alcohol, that's really what is needed, because unfortunately this becomes such a political football and governments control access to data so hotly if they are concerned the data is not going to show what they want.

Wendy Carlisle: Dr John Boffa.

The Territory government's not interested in more reviews or inquiries. In fact they were singled out and criticised by the federal parliamentary inquiry for not cooperating. Nor are they interested in the coroner's recommendation that they commission an independent expert inquiry into responses to alcohol misuse.

The Attorney General John Elferink says he's heard it all before.

Wendy Carlisle to John Elferink: The coroner gave you an option, not only did he recommend that you repeal the law, which the government has rejected, he recommended that the Territory government commission an independent expert inquiry into responses to alcohol misuse. So he did give you an option. Will you be adopting that recommendation?

John Elferink: No, and I'll tell you why, because how many more enquiries do we have to have into alcohol abuse in the Northern Territory?

Wendy Carlisle: This is an inquiry into responses to alcohol misuse.

John Elferink: And we've had those sorts of enquiries…I think that the evidence is in.

Wendy Carlisle: So the only thing you can do is throw the law at people now, you've given up?

John Elferink: What I have done is become realistic about the situation we've got because we are responding to something that is external to us, which is that passive welfare system.

Wendy Carlisle: It's a response that astonishes Dr John Boffa.

John Boffa: Look, I think that's incredibly misleading and short-sighted. I'm not aware of any independent enquiries that the Northern Territory government have conducted on alcohol policy in the broad sense. We're getting access to data off the back of the truck, information that is leaked to us, we are not getting data officially in the way that we need to assess the impact of alcohol policy. When he says they know what needs to be done, I think he means that they wake up one morning and have a good idea and realise that should be what they do. They're not looking at evidence in terms of published evidence, because if they were we'd be seeing things like a minimum unit price on alcohol in the Territory. We'd be seeing photo licensing at the point of sale and the banned drinking register returning. We'd be seeing a reduction in total takeaway trading hours. None of these things are happening.

Wendy Carlisle: The Northern Territory Police Association is also calling on the government to find a new approach. Paul McCue:

Paul McCue: You know, I think it has been far too long for the government to sit down and not look at alternative options to just sticking a police officer in front of a liquor outlet, there's other solutions and let's look at them.

Ronnie: This is the fine here I got just for drinking in a public place here in Moulden.

Wendy Carlisle: So that happened just a couple of days ago. And it happened at 10 to 8 at night and it says here you were drinking in a regulated place, in a designated area, and you continued…what's that one? Contravened a banning notice, and you had disorderly behaviour. And then it says you are fined $737.50. So what are you going to do about that fine?

Ronnie: I don't know. Unless the police will give me a job, then I can pay for this, but I'm unemployed, Newstart, so how am I going to pay that off?